THROWBACKTHISDAY; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is elected president of Liberia.

                      

On thisday November 23 2005 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf waa elected president of Liberia and becomes the first woman to lead an African country.
After the end of the Second Liberian Civil War and the establishment of a transitional government, Sirleaf was proposed as a possible candidate for chairman of the government. Ultimately, Gyude Bryant, a political neutral, was chosen as chairman, while Sirleaf served as head of the Governance Reform Commission.

Sirleaf once again stood for president as the candidate of the Unity Party in the 2005 general election. She placed second in the first round of voting behind footballer George Weah. In the subsequent run-off election, Sirleaf earned 59% of the vote versus 40% for Weah, though Weah disputed the results. The announcement of the new leader was postponed until further investigations were carried out. On 23 November 2005, Sirleaf was declared the winner of the Liberian election and confirmed as the country's next president.^[14] Her inauguration, attended by many foreign dignitaries, including United States Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush, took place on 16 January 2006.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the 24th and current President of Liberia, in office since 2006. She served as Minister of Finance under President William Tolbert from 1979 until the 1980 coup d'état, after which she left Liberia and held senior positions at various financial institutions. She placed second in the 1997 presidential election won by Charles Taylor. She won the2005 presidential election and took office on 16 January 2006, and she was a successful candidate for re-election in 2011. Sirleaf is the first elected female head of state in Africa.

Sirleaf was jointly awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakel Karman of Yemen. The women were recognized "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."^[1]

Sirleaf was conferred the Indira Gandhi Prize by President of India Pranab Mukherjee on 12 September 2013.^[2] As of 2014, she is listed as the 70th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.

 

THROWBACKTHISDAY; makes it 10 years and TBT Blog remembers.